Just This One Conservative Failure Cost 1.4 Million Jobs

Just one of the many conservative failures cost 1.4 million jobs, all by itself. And never mind how much borrowing it caused.

In Macroeconomic effects of Chinese mercantilism, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman took a look at how many jobs have been lost because of the failed Bush-era conservative “free trade” and “free market” policies that let China get away with all kinds of things. Specifically in this case from China’s “mercantilist policy” of “keeping the renminbi weak through a combination of capital controls and intervention, leading to trade surpluses and capital exports in a country that might well be a natural capital importer.”

Generally, he says, “You can think of this as a negative shock to rest-of-world net exports.” In other words, because China keeps its currency lower than it should be, this causes other countries to have trouble selling what they make. This drag on their sales is the “negative shock.”

“…we’re looking at 1.4 million U.S. jobs lost due to Chinese mercantilism.”

1.4 million jobs — and this is just from Chinese currency manipulation. Never mind all the other things China is doing like subsidies of their companies, allowing pollution, keeping wages too low, selling things below cost to capture markets, etc. Conservatives allowed them to get away with it, choosing to borrow instead of manufacture for the previous 8 years. And borrow they did.

About Dave Johnson

Dave has more than 20 years of technology industry experience. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. He was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US.